Ghana thrash arch rivals Zambia in youth tournament in Nigeria

ZAMBIA’s representatives at the ongoing Pan-African Airtel Under-17 Rising Stars tournament in Nigeria stuttered after a bright start with the girls’ team losing 4-1 against Ghana, while the boys drew 1-1, but both still remain in good frame to make the quarter-finals.

The boys, losing finalists from last year’s event and started the 2013 edition on a high with a 2-1 over Sierra Leon, drew their second game against north-eastern neighbours Tanzania via a 1-1 score.

Patson Daka, who was top scorer for the national tournament held in Lusaka scored for the junior Chipolopolo; with the draw putting Zambia into joint leadership on four points.

Sharing top slot with Zambia in Group D is now bitter rivals Ghana on four points after the West Africans drew 2-2 with Sierra Leon who together with Tanzania, are on a point each.

Zambia was by pressing time scheduled to play Ghana in the top of the bill match with the winner expected to get an automatic qualification to the last eight and the loser having to wait for result from other venues.

A draw would however see both sides through but FAZ committee member Lee Kawanu, who is delegation leader, insisted “Our aim is to beat Ghana and win the group”.

For the girls, it was a sad day as after a 4-0 bashing of Burkina Faso, they fell 4-1 to Ghana and got into joint second with Ghana as Chad surged ahead on six points after the beat beating Burkina Faso 1-0 yesterday.

Zambia got the consolation goal in the game against Ghana through Barbara Banda, who scored twice in the beating Burkina Faso.

“The girls still have a good chance of making it to the quarter finals; if we beat Chad or as best third-placed team if they avoid losing by a big margin, but our aim of course is to beat Chad,” Kawanu said.

Zambia Airtel Rising Stars (ARS) boys team progressed to the semi-finals of the competition after they beat Congo Brazaville 4 – 2 on post match penalties.

This was after both teams failed to break the 1 – 1 deadlock in a match played this afternoon.

The Zambian youngsters remain undefeated at the tournament having recorded a win and a draw against Sierra Leone and Tanzania respectively in matches played earlier. In their opening match on Tuesday, Zambia defeated Sierra Leone 2-1 and recorded a 1 – 1 draw against Tanzania a day later.

Yesterday they dispatched their Ghanaian counterparts via a 1 – 0 score-line to progress to the quarter finals.

Zambia qualified from Group D along with Tanzania who defeated Sierra Leone 4-2 in their final match.

The other teams that qualified from the boys’ category are Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Malawi, Madagascar and Congo Brazzaville.

Nigeria, Ghana, Chad, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Tanzania and Democartic Republic of Congo are the teams that qualified from the girls’ category.

oh, so whats the problem here? GSN is right. There are two categories of the competition, boys and girls. The ghana boys lost 1-0 to the zambia boys whereas the zambia girls were thrashed 4-1 by the ghana girls. so dats dat. And GSN, who said zambia are our archrivals. U guys jux love posting whatever comes to ur mind. jux a meeting in 2012afcon and wc qualifiers 2013 is not enough to label zambia as ghana’s “arch” rivals,please. we are not even at the same level to be frank for such rivalry to exist. maybe brief recent rivals but certainly not “arch”.

Good Junior Chipolopolo beat Ghana thou this site is always trying to report all positives about Ghana. Yes us Zambia we will never forget the treatment we got for the Kumasi match and believe me we just don’t forget. By the way Zambia hosts AFCON2017 U20 we garantee Ghana that don’t qualify to come to Zambia what we got in Kumasi treatment that’s nothing, copperbelt is no place u can wish for revenge – local boys are ROUGH and believe me it won’t a good place even police knws that won’t be good for Ghana. You guys lost your morals and make fellows African brothers to train on concrete, parking lot and stoning us with no police protection? You got no idea hope u don’t qualify

joe bidden, stop it with dat talk. no one forced zambia to train on concrete esp infront of opponent fans. it was all a lame attempt to cause a mishap for the game to be awarded freely as a win to zambia. it obviously didn’t work. this issue is past and gone. ur coach admitted it was bad organisation by ur fa and faz also knows its all their fault so stop trying to play innocent victims here cos the world knows all the facts related to this issue. meanwhile, i heard somewhere the score between the zambia boys and ghana boys was actually 1- 1. dunno which to believe. i guess google awaits.